Our Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum
At Chambersbury Primary School we want children in Early Years to be happy, confident, independent individuals, with a love for learning. We provide a challenging, fun and safe environment to enable each child to reach their potential. We create exciting and engaging opportunities for children to learn through play both inside and outside the classroom. The relationships we build are essential and we ensure that we work together closely with parents/carers to ensure the very best start for each child as they become part of our ‘Chambersbury Family’. We believe that high quality adult interactions and modelling learning are the key to developing curious young minds. We are laying the foundations to strive for all children at our school to become “change-makers” and “assets” in the community, society and world they live in.
Intent
Our Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum has been designed focusing on the needs and wishes of our children and community. We surveyed Governors, Staff and Parents of our school to find out what was important for the children in Chambersbury. We found the key themes were:
We have built a curriculum that provided they key experiences and learning that children need to continue to be a life-long learner.
Implementation
Our curriculum follows the Early Years Foundation Stage Statuary Framework 2021 and we use the Development Matters Statements and Early Learning Goals to assess the children’s achievements.
The transition process at Chambersbury is carefully planned. We take into account children’s individual needs, interests and work together with both previous settings and parents/carers to ensure a smooth transition to school.
We work closely to develop children’s next steps and strive to challenge children to become independent and resilient learners. The Characteristics of Effective learning are modelled and promoted by the adults to help children with how to learn effectively.
All EYFS practitioners work together to provide an engaging, hands-on and fun activities to promote learning in all of the key areas of learning.
-Communication and Language Development
Children’s’ communication and language development unpins all other areas of learning. We work to develop children’s vocabulary in a language rich environment. The use of high quality texts and songs are important tools to unlock effective communication and language. We provide lots of opportunities for purposeful talk and promote two way conversations and interactions. We use Wellcomm, Elkan and work with outside agencies such as SALT to help children to develop effective communication skills.
- Personal Social and Emotional Development
Happiness and wellbeing is key for our children. We provide a warm, friendly environment to ensure that children feel happy relaxed and are able to form strong relationships with others. We provide opportunities for children to express themselves effectively and teach them to be able to self-regulate their own feelings through Zones of Regulation. We work together with children in their independent play as well as modelling different social situations and co-operative play to help children understand how to get along with others. We celebrate differences and promote understanding of different cultures, beliefs, abilities and families. We will work to break down stereotypes and encourage a ‘can do’ attitude.
-Physical Development
We teach the importance of healthy bodies and healthy minds. There are opportunities for children to develop their fine and gross motor skills on a daily basis through PE, outdoor learning, clubs, dough gym and busy fingers activities. We promote independence with children’s self-care skills and the importance of a healthy diet.
- Literacy
We promote a life-long love of books and reading through quality texts. We learn through a range of books that teach children about the world around them and give them real life experiences related to these books and stories. We ensure children have the opportunity to become story tellers by providing ways to explore books through drama, retelling stories and talking about books, settings and different characters. We have daily phonics sessions help children to develop the keys skills they need to gain letter and sound correspondence and gain the foundations of reading and writing. We ensure that children have a range of opportunities to explore mark making and writing to help them, providing purposeful writing opportunities linked to the topics we are learning as well as the children’s interests.
-Mathematics
We provide children with the foundations they need to succeed in mathematics. We teach the children to have a deep understand of number to 10 through a range of engaging and hands on experiences to understand numbers and counting. We develop children’s spatial and reasoning skill with a focus on noticing patterns and shape, space and measures.
-Understanding the World
We want children to have an understanding of the world around them and their part in it. We have carefully planned a range of different real-life experiences and trips to help children understand the world around them including nature, different environments, processes and changes. We give them opportunities through books and stories to explore and compare the past and present as well as learning about how other people live in different cultures and countries. We build on children’s knowledge of the world around them, by extending vocabulary and questioning. We live in a world where technology is constantly developing and want to engage children in this by giving them opportunities to use a range of technology.
-Expressive Art and Design
We want to ignite children’s imagination and creativity. We teach children a range of skills that can be used to design, make and be creative in their own ways. They are taught to use a range of different media and materials and how to apply these. Music is a key part of our day to day and helps to children to learn across all of the areas of learning. Through art and design we teach the children about different cultures and people, as well as self-expression.
Impact
By the time children leave the Foundation Stage at Chambersbury Primary School they will be ready for the next stage in their learning. They will be able to communicate effectively and express themselves in a range of ways, having a positive attitude to learning. They will have built those key foundation blocks across the areas of development that will ensure that they continue to build on, moving forward as life-long learners.